Sound Policy, Uneven Performance

June 2, 2016

In recent years, Nigeria has placed fresh emphasis on the agriculture sector in its efforts to generate broad-based growth, diversify the economy away from hydrocarbons, create jobs, and achieve food security. The administrations of President Muhammadu Buhari and his predecessor Goodluck Jonathan have made repeated public commitments to revive Nigerian agriculture. A flurry of new policies and programs have been unveiled, aimed at both smallholder farmers and large producers. These efforts have been given more urgency by the slump in global oil prices and the drain on foreign currency reserves caused by the crippling cost of food imports. This policy brief looks at the progress made so far and identifies the gaps that have yet to be addressed. It argues that the policies are sound and progress has been made in addressing corruption within the agriculture sector, improving the delivery of inputs to smallholder farmers, and generating some domestic and foreign agribusiness investment. However, implementation has been uneven, partly because the government’s rhetoric about the importance of agriculture has not been matched by a significantly larger budget commitment.